For scientific papers on AGW, record happenings in the Arctic and the Greenland, Himalayan and Antarctic icesheets. Also weatherstorms and higher than average rainfalls and other extreme weather events.

David Bruer has been growing vines and making wine at his Temple Bruer vineyard in the Mount Lofty Ranges in South Australia since 1978.

In his vineyard laboratory, weather records for every vintage for nearly 40 years are stacked in plastic folders.They clearly show a steady increase in maximum temperatures over that time of about 1 degree. It might seem like a relatively small change but the impact has been dramatic.

About 800 kilometres to the east of Temple Bruer, Ross Brown from Brown Brothers Wines has an even longer weather record on file. His family has been making wine in Milawa, Victoria, for almost 130 years.

Mr Brown says he used to be a climate change sceptic but his vintage charts are indicating things have changed.In Milawa, Brown Brothers is also picking earlier and their records show temperatures are rising.

Some of the cool climate varieties his family always used to grow here — like pinot noir and sparkling whites — have now become too unreliable so the company has moved some of its operation to cooler country in Tasmania.

“We decided that we would do our planning in future on a two-degrees increase in our vineyard temperatures and that we would have less water available,” Mr Brown said. “Making a strategic decision has really changed the way we look at our vineyards.”

But if average temperature rises go beyond two degrees then, he says, the options run out.“We don’t know where to go after Tasmania,” he said.

Brown Brothers is a big operation. Their winemaking is on an industrial scale and the decision to adapt to the changing weather was driven by the company’s board. (And for a big wine company they have always turned out a top drop, 40 years ago I used to take a trip to the mountains up there and always buy a couple of cases at the Cellar)

Last November, Geoff Summerhayes, an executive member of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), told businesses climate change posed a material risk to the entire financial system.

His message was that boards and directors had a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to take it into account. He cited legal opinion that found company directors who failed to consider and disclose climate risk could be in breach of the Corporations Act.

“Climate change and society’s responses to it are starting to affect the global economy,” he said. “Institutions that fail to adequately plan for this transition put their own futures in jeopardy, with subsequent consequences for their account holders, members or policy holders.”

That’s a view that’s now been backed by Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe. On February 16, he told a sitting of the Federal Parliament’s economics committee that the Council of Financial Regulators – a body he chairs – had established a working group to look at issues about disclosure.

The RBA confirmed it believed investors needed to be given more information on climate risk.

It might seem a small move but it’s seen as highly significant in the corporate world.

Abbott & Co are going to cause the mother and father of all recessions—be prepared!

Off topic, but Four Corners displays climate change as it is happening in Australia. Of particular note is that privately maintained data created by farmers showed changes that have been happening over decades. [My emphasis]